Hello and welcome to live coverage of stage 5 of the Giro d'Italia. It's the first mountaintop finish as the riders head to the Apennine ski resort of Abetone for what could be a thrilling finale.

FLASHPOINT: Alberto Contador changes his bike and is now being ushered back to the peloton by a couple of Tinkoff-Saxo team-mates. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether that was intentional - but Contador does have a track record of changing steeds mid-race.

More refuelling for the break, as Serghei Tvetcov reaches round for an energy bar. The gap is down to 9:40 now as GreenEdge up the tempo a little.

The five leaders approach the second intermediate sprint at Bagni di Lucca. They still have over 10 minutes on the peloton - provided the GPS of the host broadcaster is correct (there are suggestions that yesterday they over-exaggerated the break somewhat, hence the speed at which the gap came down).

Elia Viviani is picking up some bidons for his Sky team-mates, stuffing them down his red jersey with more gusto than Mark Cavendish did with his rainbow stripes back in 2012. Meanwhile, another former Sky rider, Simon Gerrans, is munching on some food - either an energy bar, sandwich or banana. It's hard to tell. We didn't see it going in, just his frantic mastication.

No change as the riders continue the gradual descent towards Bagni di Lucca, where the toad will start to head up ahead of the final ascent to Abetone. The gap is 10:25 for the five leaders, with Orica-GreenEdge still controlling things on the front of the peloton. It's fair to say, today's stage doesn't have a fraction fo the excitement on offer yesterday - fo now.

Tvetcov has managed to catch the other escapees up, but he has a problem with his left shoe - the binding strap snapped off when he unclipped at speed to steady himself. He draws level with his Androni team car, is promptly told there's no spare shoes by silver fox DS Gianni Savio, and is then taped up by a mechanic. It's a quick fix, but it'll have to do.

Perhaps the intermediate sprint has gone to his head, because Tvetcov then overcooks a hairpin bend on the descent from Barga and almost comes off his bike. Replays show that he was probably confused with a road intersection and took the turning instead of continuing the bend. He then rode it out onto the grass verge so as not to make a sudden skid, which would have no doubt seen him hit the deck. Good evasive action from the Russian, who was leading the five man break there. Luckily, none of the other escapees followed his line.

The leaders are negotiating the short but sharp-ish climb up to the town of Barga, where the first of two intermediate sprints comes. It's uncontested, with Russia's Serghei Tvetcov (Androni) taking maximum points and bonus seconds. Back with the peloton, the Orica-GreenEdge pace-setters are tucking into their feedzone musettes.

The gap is 10:35 for the five leaders, so it looks like one of them will win the stage today - even if all hell breaks loose behind. We've got the two intermediate TV sprints coming up - but none of these riders is a threat to the current maglia rossa - red jersey - of Elia Viviani, the winner of stage two from Team Sky.

Both Axel Domont and Silvan Dillier have been involved in breaks so far in this race, while Sylvain Chavanel came down in that first crash involving IAM team-mate Heinrich Haussler back in stage two. Alessandro Malaguti has finally called it a day, the Nippo-Vini Fantini rider sitting up and allowing himself to be swallowed up by the peloton.

The five leaders are entering the town of Castelnuovo di Garfagnana which is where today's feed zone is. The whole peloton should consider themselves lucky: two routes out of town include the barbaric climb to San Pellegrino in Alpe and the less steep but longer sinuous ascent of the Passo delle Radici. The route today, however, continues down the valley towards Bagni di Lucca before heading up towards the ski resort of Abetone. In short: today's stage could have been so much harder.

The gap is up to 10 minutes for the five leaders, who are: Axel Domont (Ag2R-La Mondiale), Serghei Tvetcov (Androni Sidermec), Silvan Dillier (BMC), Sylvain Chavanel (IAM) and Jan Polanc (Lampre-Merida). They broke clear about 10km into today's 152km stage. The best placed on GC is Polanc, currently 19:19 down, and so somewhat short of being the virtual maglia rosa...

You have to feel for Alessandro Malaguti - he's been riding on his own pretty much the entire stage, and managed to get as close as two minutes to the break. But he's now four minutes back, but five minutes ahead of the peloton. Surely he calls it a day and sits up?

Orica-GreenEdge are still leading the chase - and tonight they could perhaps have a fourth rider in pink: Esteban Chaves. It all depends on whether or not the Colombian can stick with the big guns on today's final climb to Abetone.

The five leaders have crested the summit with a nine minute lead over the peloton, with lone ranger Malaguti still toiling away three minutes in arrears.

What a great race so far from Orica-GreenEdge, who have now had three different Australian riders in the pink jersey since that opening day team time trial win in San Remo: Simon Gerrans, Michael Matthews and Simon Clarke. Don't forget Matthews' stage three win, plus Esteban Chaves's white jersey - the Colombian, currently second place at 10 seconds behind his team-mate Clarke - is the best placed young rider.

The Cat.3 climb to Foce Carpinelli is 10km long at 5%. The five leaders are now about half way up, with a gap of 2:30 over lone chaser Malaguti, who himself is over five minutes ahead of the peloton.

There's no threat from any of these escapees for the race favourites: the highest place on GC is Slovenia's Jan Polanc of Lampre-Merida, who is almost 20 minutes down.

One rider - Alessandro Malaguti Nippo - Vini Fantini) - is riding 'chasse patate' in between the break and the peloton. He's about four minutes down on the leaders and one minute ahead of the pack, taking advantage of the relatively slow pace after yesterday's fast and furious stage.

The five escapees saw their lead extend to five minutes as that first climb to Foce Carpinelli loomed, with the Orica-GreenEdge team-mates of pink jersey Simon Clarke setting the pace on the front of the pack.

Astana really took the race by the scruff of its neck yesterday, chasing down the leading group and setting such a high tempo that Alberto Contador was left with no team-mates after Mick Rogers finally cracked. After Fabio Aru attacked, only Contador and Richie Porte could follow. The Spaniard could call on Roman Kreuziger, who was - oddly - involved in the large break. Rigoberto Uran of Etixx lost 42 seconds to his rivals.